Oklahoma governor spares life of death row inmate just before scheduled lethal injection

Republican Kevin Stitt commuted Tremane Wood’s death sentence to life in prison for 2002 murder of Ronnie Wipf

Tremane Wood, the 46-year-old death row inmate who faced execution today in Oklahoma, has had his life spared just minutes before he was set to receive a lethal injection.

Kevin Stitt, the state’s Republican governor, accepted the Oklahoma pardon and parole board’s recommendation that Wood’s sentence be commuted to life in prison without parole. It is just the second time during Stitt’s nearly seven years as governor that he has granted clemency.

Earlier in the day, the US supreme court issued a ruling denying a request from Wood’s attorneys to stop the execution.

Wood was convicted of felony murder in the stabbing death of Ronnie Wipf, a 19-year-old migrant farm worker from Montana, during a botched robbery in 2002. Wood’s attorneys have not denied that he participated in the robbery but maintain that his brother, Zjaiton (“Jake”) Wood, was the one who stabbed Wipf.

Zjaiton Wood was sentenced to life without parole and died in prison in 2019 after admitting to several people that he killed Wipf, said Tremane Wood’s attorney, Amanda Bass Castro Alves.

In issuing the pardon, Stitt said in a statement: “This action reflects the same punishment his brother received for their murder of an innocent young man and ensures a severe punishment that keeps a violent offender off the streets forever.”

Stitt, who has served two terms and cannot run for re-election in 2026, has only granted clemency once during his nearly seven years as governor.

Wood has been imprisoned at the Oklahoma state penitentiary in McAlester for more than 20 years. The state’s pardon and parole board issued an uncommon clemency recommendation last week.

“I’m not a monster. I’m not a killer,” Wood told the hearing via a video link from prison. “I never was, and I never have been.”

Wood’s attorneys had argued, among other things, that trial prosecutors did not properly reveal details of a plea agreement with a key witness.

Prosecutors have painted Wood as a dangerous criminal who has continued to participate in gang activity and commit crimes while incarcerated, including buying and selling drugs, using contraband cellphones, and ordering attacks on other people in the prison.

“Even within the confines of maximum security prison, Tremane Wood has continued to manipulate, exploit and harm others,” the state’s attorney general, Gentner Drummond, said earlier.

During his testimony last week, Wood accepted responsibility for his prison misconduct and his participation in the robbery, but reiterated that he was not the one who killed Wipf.

“I regret my role in everything that happened that night,” he said.

In Florida, Bryan Frederick Jennings was scheduled to die by lethal injection on Thursday. In South Carolina, Stephen Bryant was scheduled to die by firing squad on Friday.

As well as the 41 people who have died by court-ordered execution so far this year in the US, at least another 17, including Jennings and Bryant, are scheduled to be put to death during the remainder of 2025 and next year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

14 NOVEMBER UPDATE:

Oklahoma inmate whose life was spared by governor later found unresponsive in cell

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — An Oklahoma inmate whose life was spared by Gov. Kevin Stitt just moments before he was to receive a lethal injection on Thursday was later found unresponsive inside his cell and rushed to receive medical attention, prison officials said.

Guards found Tremane Wood, 46, unresponsive in his cell during a routine check hours after his sentence was commuted and after he had visited with his attorneys, said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Kay Thompson. It was determined that dehydration and stress caused Wood’s medical event, and he was stable and alert Thursday evening, prison officials said.

Wood told Thompson he was alone in his cell when he went to lie down and believes he may have rolled off his bunk after losing consciousness, according to a recorded interview with Wood released by the Department of Corrections after he was taken to a hospital.

“I didn’t have all my senses,” Wood said in the recording. “I woke up in the infirmary with my head busted and my lip busted, and that’s pretty much it right there.”

Wood said he hadn’t eaten anything since the previous day, and that he didn’t try to harm himself. (The Associated Press, November 14, 2025)

Source: The Guardian, Staff, November 13, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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